- Email: [email protected]
Remarks from a retiring Editor
Journal of Nuclear Materials 465 (2015) A1eA2
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Nuclear Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jnucmat
Editorial
Remarks from a retiring Editor
At the end of 2015 I plan to step down as Chairman of Editors for the Journal of Nuclear Materials. I use the opportunity to express thoughts that have recurred to me but were muted in comparison with the day to day priorities of editorial work. The most important is that I hold the deepest gratitude for your enduring support– authors, reviewers, readers, the Advisory Editorial Board, and my fellow Editors. The story unfolded in the following way. In view of later developments, we surmise that Joe Darby, Chairman of Editors, was contemplating retirement. For several years I had been submitting research manuscripts to the Journal. As authors know too well, publishing brings obligation. Predictably, Joe sent requests to provide peer review of manuscripts. I tried to respond with thoroughness and constructive criticism. In early 1988 he wrote to offer an appointment to the Advisory Editorial Board, surely without hidden agenda. The Board is the authoritative body in this field, charged with maintaining excellence in the quality and character of the Journal. As a member I received a number of requests to assist the Editors. About a year later the phone interrupted my calculations. The call would change my life. Joe broached the idea of my becoming Editor of the Journal. Jim Stiegler, then my boss at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and leader of the largest group within the US in radiation materials science, soon after appeared in my office, not by coincidence. Their bombshell upset my daily routine of research and triggered a feverish mulling over of the ramifications. In the end I declined. Too busy with work in theory and modeling of radiation effects in metal alloys, not to mention leadership responsibilities for a small group of researchers doing theoretical and experimental work. I was stretched past capacity. Surely they would understand that there was no way to add the commitment to editorial duties required by this exalted journal. That was that. Advice to readersdfollowing the Editor's call and your boss's visit, prepare yourself. The cajoling and inveigling began. Bas van der Hoek, the Journal's publisher, suggested I try it out. They countered my poor decision with the cunning and determination of experienced men. Soon I became grateful to them for their gift of persuasion, as I am to the fine succession of fellow Editors and publishers with whom I have worked during the intervening years. My appointment began in 1990. Three and a half years later I became Chairman of Editors, following Robert Cahn, Joe Darby and Brian Eyre who earlier occupied that position. The trial period comes to an end. I have read a staggering number of pages, weighed conscientiously researched and sometimes conflicting reviewer recommendations, made both painless as well as difficult editorial decisions, and
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2015.08.025 0022-3115/© 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
guided editorial policy. For all situations there has been the steady light of fairness and evenhandedness to authors. The perspective one takes on as Editor, generously enriched over the years with knowledge given by authors and reviewers, has made it possible to deal with the vast breadth and depth of submitted manuscripts. It has been more than 25 years. I am the longest serving Editor for Journal of Nuclear Materials. Overall, my association with the Journal covers 70% of the Journal's lifetime and more than half my own. My earliest paper published here was in 1976. In these circumstances I might be permitted to sketch a long view, rather than an overly particular list of individual accomplishments. Readers now take for granted that there is a science of nuclear materials and that there is a journal dedicated to it. It was not always so. The new discipline arose from nuclear energy technology in the 1950's. In that early time research papers in nuclear materials and in radiation materials science (the largest subset of topics) were scattered over institutional reports generally difficult to obtain, or fit uneasily into various journals dedicated to established materials disciplines. The Journal of Nuclear Materials was founded in 1959 to provide a dedicated forum for publication. Its founding Editors were Robert Cahn (UK), John Howe (US), Paul Lacombe (France). The Journal was something of a rebel because of its scope in then unfamiliar areas of materials science. As it is with successful rebels, the Journal gradually became part of the established order. Today it is regarded as the premier journal in the field. The scope and content provide the working definition of the field of nuclear materials. In carrying that archival record of research, it also serves as a chronicle of the careers of the field's makers. The uniqueness of coverage stems from the interaction of radiation with materials. The Editor continually observes that nuclear materials is better seen in the context of a dimension, which like temperature can affect virtually every property, rather than as a label for another conventional category of materials science, such as mechanical properties or corrosion. The Journal is defined further by its breadth of scale. Within most volumes the coverage ranges from behavior of atomic defects and interactions of energetic atoms, to materials performance relevant to engineered components. From its very beginnings computer simulation, sometimes called the third and most recent major branch of science, to complement the traditional branches of theory and experiment, has been particularly prominent in the Journal's coverage. A measure of the success of an institution is its popularity. By definition publishing is a kind of record keeping. Statistical metrics therefore are readily available. The growth has been remarkable. One measure is the number of citations appearing in all journals
A2
Editorial / Journal of Nuclear Materials 465 (2015) A1eA2
to papers published in Journal of Nuclear Materials; another example is the number of electronic downloads by readers. In 1997 the number of citations was 5,457, whereas in 2014 the number was four times as large. Electronic downloads of papers exhibit a stunning increase. In the year 2000 that number was fewer than 40,000, whereas in 2014 downloads exceeded one million. A broad measure of the reputation of the Journal, and the success of the field itself, relates to the home institutions and countries from which our authors hail. In 1990, when I joined as Editor, we were receiving significant numbers of manuscripts from about 8 countries. In recent years the number of countries is five times higher. As our authors confirm repeatedly, the impact factor of a journal is important in deciding where to submit a manuscript. It measures how many citations an average paper receives in a particular year. We have good news. The impact factor of the Journal of Nuclear Materials has doubled. In 1997 the impact factor was 1. In each of the past two years it was about 2. Editorial policy decisions have shaped the Journal. We cultivate coverage to meet the needs of authors and readers. During the 1950's and 1960's content emphasized fission reactor materials– fuels, cladding, core structures, pressure vessels, coolants, moderator and control components. In the 1970's the technological issues of fusion reactors began to receive more attention. The Editors quickly responded by adopting fusion reactor materials as a major sector of the Journal's core. The topics include first wall structural and plasma-facing materials, blankets, magnets and insulators. In the 1990's we engaged the nuclear waste community to encourage submissions on materials for nuclear waste isolation, a crucial topic that until that time was barely represented in our pages. During the same period we sought submission of manuscripts covering radiation materials science by ion irradiation. In the 2000's, to meet the research interests of a growing cohort of authors and readers, we made the editorial policy decision to bring in manuscripts covering materials for high power particle accelerators; spallation targets, accelerator structural materials, magnets and insulators. There have been many important improvements in the mechanics of our editorial and publication processes. The electronic
editorial system that we adopted in 2007 is one of the two most important. Every step–submission of manuscripts, peer review, and editorial correspondence–takes place through the internet. Prior to that, we oversaw a gradually evolving process of paperbased and hybrid paper/electronic handling of manuscripts. Electronic publishing ranks as the other most important change. The entire Journal is available on a web-based platform, where search functions and other tools greatly improve the experience for our readers. Print copies of volumes are still produced and are judged by some readers to offer specific advantages. Fission reactors, fusion reactors, and to lesser extent high power accelerators, which mainly govern the applications for nuclear materials, experience the same physical processes at the atomic level. They confront similar issues where engineered component lifetimes are determined by the effects of radiation. These similarities notwithstanding, the research communities and those of other smaller nuclear materials areas generally stand somewhat separated in terms of topical conferences, institutional funding and cooperative efforts. By serving all research communities the Journal is a vehicle for cross-fertilization and collaboration, helping also to eliminate duplication of effort. Basic studies of atom-level processes, evolution of microstructures, thermodynamics, corrosion, physical and mechanical properties constitute a broadly unified block of publications in the Journal. In these pages we observe that these fundamental activities in theory, experiment and computer simulation deliver benefits for the applied technologies. Further, we can see that the signature contribution of nuclear materials to materials science is the understanding of radiation effects. Your Journal is healthy and will prosper into the future. I am privileged to have had one of the roles with influence on the field of nuclear materials. Louis K. Mansur, Chairman of Editors, Journal of Nuclear Materials, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA E-mail address: [email protected].
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Nuclear Materials journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jnucmat
Editorial
Remarks from a retiring Editor
At the end of 2015 I plan to step down as Chairman of Editors for the Journal of Nuclear Materials. I use the opportunity to express thoughts that have recurred to me but were muted in comparison with the day to day priorities of editorial work. The most important is that I hold the deepest gratitude for your enduring support– authors, reviewers, readers, the Advisory Editorial Board, and my fellow Editors. The story unfolded in the following way. In view of later developments, we surmise that Joe Darby, Chairman of Editors, was contemplating retirement. For several years I had been submitting research manuscripts to the Journal. As authors know too well, publishing brings obligation. Predictably, Joe sent requests to provide peer review of manuscripts. I tried to respond with thoroughness and constructive criticism. In early 1988 he wrote to offer an appointment to the Advisory Editorial Board, surely without hidden agenda. The Board is the authoritative body in this field, charged with maintaining excellence in the quality and character of the Journal. As a member I received a number of requests to assist the Editors. About a year later the phone interrupted my calculations. The call would change my life. Joe broached the idea of my becoming Editor of the Journal. Jim Stiegler, then my boss at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and leader of the largest group within the US in radiation materials science, soon after appeared in my office, not by coincidence. Their bombshell upset my daily routine of research and triggered a feverish mulling over of the ramifications. In the end I declined. Too busy with work in theory and modeling of radiation effects in metal alloys, not to mention leadership responsibilities for a small group of researchers doing theoretical and experimental work. I was stretched past capacity. Surely they would understand that there was no way to add the commitment to editorial duties required by this exalted journal. That was that. Advice to readersdfollowing the Editor's call and your boss's visit, prepare yourself. The cajoling and inveigling began. Bas van der Hoek, the Journal's publisher, suggested I try it out. They countered my poor decision with the cunning and determination of experienced men. Soon I became grateful to them for their gift of persuasion, as I am to the fine succession of fellow Editors and publishers with whom I have worked during the intervening years. My appointment began in 1990. Three and a half years later I became Chairman of Editors, following Robert Cahn, Joe Darby and Brian Eyre who earlier occupied that position. The trial period comes to an end. I have read a staggering number of pages, weighed conscientiously researched and sometimes conflicting reviewer recommendations, made both painless as well as difficult editorial decisions, and
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2015.08.025 0022-3115/© 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V.
guided editorial policy. For all situations there has been the steady light of fairness and evenhandedness to authors. The perspective one takes on as Editor, generously enriched over the years with knowledge given by authors and reviewers, has made it possible to deal with the vast breadth and depth of submitted manuscripts. It has been more than 25 years. I am the longest serving Editor for Journal of Nuclear Materials. Overall, my association with the Journal covers 70% of the Journal's lifetime and more than half my own. My earliest paper published here was in 1976. In these circumstances I might be permitted to sketch a long view, rather than an overly particular list of individual accomplishments. Readers now take for granted that there is a science of nuclear materials and that there is a journal dedicated to it. It was not always so. The new discipline arose from nuclear energy technology in the 1950's. In that early time research papers in nuclear materials and in radiation materials science (the largest subset of topics) were scattered over institutional reports generally difficult to obtain, or fit uneasily into various journals dedicated to established materials disciplines. The Journal of Nuclear Materials was founded in 1959 to provide a dedicated forum for publication. Its founding Editors were Robert Cahn (UK), John Howe (US), Paul Lacombe (France). The Journal was something of a rebel because of its scope in then unfamiliar areas of materials science. As it is with successful rebels, the Journal gradually became part of the established order. Today it is regarded as the premier journal in the field. The scope and content provide the working definition of the field of nuclear materials. In carrying that archival record of research, it also serves as a chronicle of the careers of the field's makers. The uniqueness of coverage stems from the interaction of radiation with materials. The Editor continually observes that nuclear materials is better seen in the context of a dimension, which like temperature can affect virtually every property, rather than as a label for another conventional category of materials science, such as mechanical properties or corrosion. The Journal is defined further by its breadth of scale. Within most volumes the coverage ranges from behavior of atomic defects and interactions of energetic atoms, to materials performance relevant to engineered components. From its very beginnings computer simulation, sometimes called the third and most recent major branch of science, to complement the traditional branches of theory and experiment, has been particularly prominent in the Journal's coverage. A measure of the success of an institution is its popularity. By definition publishing is a kind of record keeping. Statistical metrics therefore are readily available. The growth has been remarkable. One measure is the number of citations appearing in all journals
A2
Editorial / Journal of Nuclear Materials 465 (2015) A1eA2
to papers published in Journal of Nuclear Materials; another example is the number of electronic downloads by readers. In 1997 the number of citations was 5,457, whereas in 2014 the number was four times as large. Electronic downloads of papers exhibit a stunning increase. In the year 2000 that number was fewer than 40,000, whereas in 2014 downloads exceeded one million. A broad measure of the reputation of the Journal, and the success of the field itself, relates to the home institutions and countries from which our authors hail. In 1990, when I joined as Editor, we were receiving significant numbers of manuscripts from about 8 countries. In recent years the number of countries is five times higher. As our authors confirm repeatedly, the impact factor of a journal is important in deciding where to submit a manuscript. It measures how many citations an average paper receives in a particular year. We have good news. The impact factor of the Journal of Nuclear Materials has doubled. In 1997 the impact factor was 1. In each of the past two years it was about 2. Editorial policy decisions have shaped the Journal. We cultivate coverage to meet the needs of authors and readers. During the 1950's and 1960's content emphasized fission reactor materials– fuels, cladding, core structures, pressure vessels, coolants, moderator and control components. In the 1970's the technological issues of fusion reactors began to receive more attention. The Editors quickly responded by adopting fusion reactor materials as a major sector of the Journal's core. The topics include first wall structural and plasma-facing materials, blankets, magnets and insulators. In the 1990's we engaged the nuclear waste community to encourage submissions on materials for nuclear waste isolation, a crucial topic that until that time was barely represented in our pages. During the same period we sought submission of manuscripts covering radiation materials science by ion irradiation. In the 2000's, to meet the research interests of a growing cohort of authors and readers, we made the editorial policy decision to bring in manuscripts covering materials for high power particle accelerators; spallation targets, accelerator structural materials, magnets and insulators. There have been many important improvements in the mechanics of our editorial and publication processes. The electronic
editorial system that we adopted in 2007 is one of the two most important. Every step–submission of manuscripts, peer review, and editorial correspondence–takes place through the internet. Prior to that, we oversaw a gradually evolving process of paperbased and hybrid paper/electronic handling of manuscripts. Electronic publishing ranks as the other most important change. The entire Journal is available on a web-based platform, where search functions and other tools greatly improve the experience for our readers. Print copies of volumes are still produced and are judged by some readers to offer specific advantages. Fission reactors, fusion reactors, and to lesser extent high power accelerators, which mainly govern the applications for nuclear materials, experience the same physical processes at the atomic level. They confront similar issues where engineered component lifetimes are determined by the effects of radiation. These similarities notwithstanding, the research communities and those of other smaller nuclear materials areas generally stand somewhat separated in terms of topical conferences, institutional funding and cooperative efforts. By serving all research communities the Journal is a vehicle for cross-fertilization and collaboration, helping also to eliminate duplication of effort. Basic studies of atom-level processes, evolution of microstructures, thermodynamics, corrosion, physical and mechanical properties constitute a broadly unified block of publications in the Journal. In these pages we observe that these fundamental activities in theory, experiment and computer simulation deliver benefits for the applied technologies. Further, we can see that the signature contribution of nuclear materials to materials science is the understanding of radiation effects. Your Journal is healthy and will prosper into the future. I am privileged to have had one of the roles with influence on the field of nuclear materials. Louis K. Mansur, Chairman of Editors, Journal of Nuclear Materials, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA E-mail address: [email protected].